Sunday, January 29, 2012

Quiet again, not really

Our visitors from Duke University left last night. They were a good group and helped out a lot with outplanting native plants and getting rid of non-native plants. They also helped out with marine debris pickup and Laysan duck surveys. Our regional office/Washington D.C. office visitors left on Monday, so it was a short, but good visit.

We had a medevac today also. We had to go pick up a person from a passing cargo ship. The US Coast Guard will be picking that person up tonight.

I'll be going back to Honolulu for the next couple of weeks to attend the Pacific Seabird Group meeting on Oahu. I'm not sure if I'll do a blog or not from there. I guess that depends on if I find anything interesting to talk about, or if I get enough Midway photos before I leave.

A Black-footed albatross chick is working its way out of the egg.

Here's a chick that's a little older. The Black-footed chicks are usually whiter than the Laysan albatross chicks.

I tried to get another photo of the Short-tailed albatross chick, but the mom never got up.

Here's one of our indoor soccer games in the gym. ﻿

There have been a lot of turtles on Turtle Beach lately. This day there were 48 of them out basking. There were a few nets that had washed up on the beach and the Duke students took one of their mornings to do a big cleanup there. ﻿

The Duke students also got to see the spinner dolphins.﻿

Another spinner dolphin pic. I hope you aren't getting tired of them yet.

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A few brown boobies are hanging out on a buoy as the cargo ship passes by.﻿

The swells were a bit big out there today.﻿

The waves were smashing the old water barge that is grounded near the channel. It's been getting beat up for decades, but is still there.

Thanks Rachel.Mona & Nelson, the termites are pretty active in the floor, but we're replacing the bad boards. Also, we probably won't know if the Short-tailed albatross chick is a male or female for a few years.

About Me

After high school I went into the Navy doing nuclear power stuff on a submarine. After 6 years, I left the Navy then got my biology degree from Montana State Univ. I then worked for the USDA doing human nutrition research for 8 years. I also got my Master's Degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of North Dakota. While doing that I worked for Mr. Ellie Pooh selling elephant dung paper (google it) to help the Sri Lanka elephants. After that, I did the only logical thing with my MS and moved to Cleveland, OH and got a job in security at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It was great, for a while, but I found a 1 year temporary job at Midway Atoll with the US Fish & Wildlife Service. I loved it so much that I moved to an even smaller island with only 4-15 people (Tern Island). After being the Asst Manager, then the Manager, I got the chance to go back to Midway as the Wildlife Biologist for a few more years. Just so you know, I didn't write this as an employee, I just commented about my days here and put up some photos, so these aren't the views of the FWS. I still do ocean work for the FWS, but I do it from the Headquarters office in the Washington D.C. area.